Miao Honger patted her on the back and handed her some water. "What's wrong? Did you choke?"
Mu Xue's face turned red from coughing and she waved her hands repeatedly.
Cen Qianshan's words were like a bolt from the blue to Mu Xue.
Rebirth, a hundred-year dream, and when you wake up, the whole world has changed.
Everyone told her that her young apprentice had a deep love for her. At first, she just regarded these as gossips and laughed them off. Until she met Xiaoshan, until this moment, Xiaoshan said the word "love of one's life" in front of everyone.
She could no longer avoid it and had to face it.
Mu Xue took a long time to calm down, then quietly climbed up from her senior sister's arms and stole a glance at Cen Qianshan who was sitting opposite the fire.
Under the cloak, his soft hair slightly covered his eyebrows and eyes. The changing light and shadows outlined his face, and the twinkling bonfires were reflected in his eyes.
He stared at Xinghuo in a trance, not knowing what he was thinking.
Mu Xue realized that she actually never knew what Xiaoshan was really thinking.
He has been a very sensible and considerate child since he was young. In front of me, he is always cheerful and gentle, acting like a spoiled child in a proper way, taking care of everything in life in an orderly manner, and bringing me only pleasure and consideration. Rather than saying that I am taking care of him, it is better to say that they have taken care of each other for many years.
Mu Xue admitted that he was obsessed with the art of refining weapons in his previous life and often neglected his disciple who did not need any care at all.
She didn't know when the little boy had grown so tall, like a green bamboo, and became so brilliant. She also didn't notice when those clear spring-like eyes began to become scorching, burning, and hiding a different thought.
When did he fall in love with me, and fall in love with me, to the point where his love was so deep and he was obsessed with me for a hundred years.
Mu Xue looked at the thin profile illuminated by the firelight, and recalled that she had never given him any response for his feelings, but he had spent such a long time alone, still stubbornly refusing to forget.
The yellow sand was as vast as smoke, the rushing wind stirred up the gravel, and the bonfire disturbed the remaining stars.
Zhongbo sat by the campfire and plucked the strings of his zither. The melodious sound of the zither, releasing a sad song of longing, spread between heaven and earth.
Miao Honger saw that Mu Xue was a little unhappy, so she lowered her head and asked her, "What's wrong? You didn't eat much for dinner. Don't you like Eight Treasure Duck?"
"No, no," Mu Xue quickly shook her head, "This is the most delicious duck I have ever eaten. I don't know where Senior Sister learned this from."
Miao Hong'er paused for a moment and said, "This dish was specially brought to me by my master when I first started learning cooking."
"When I was little, there was a famine in my hometown one year, and many people starved to death. My younger brothers and sisters all died at that time." She shared the duck leg in the bowl with Mu Xue and spoke slowly while eating the food.
"At that time, I was lying in a corner, feeling like I was going to die. Then my master appeared beside me, accepted me as his disciple, and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted to eat Eight Treasure Duck, the most delicious Eight Treasure Duck in the world."
Miao Honger reached out and touched Mu Xue's head. She was only a few years older than Mu Xue back then, and she had a younger sister. Although their family was poor, the sisters had a very good relationship and often played around the big water tank in the kitchen.
It was clearly a long time ago, but when I think back on it, it is still vivid in my mind.
That year there was a famine, the fields were left barren, nine out of ten houses were empty, and many people sold their children and exchanged their own children for food.
Miao Hong'er, who was so hungry that she was exhausted, collapsed on the worn-out earthen couch at home, not wanting to move at all. She heard her father quietly discussing something with the neighbors in the yard.
Not long after, her father pushed the door open and came in with red eyes to pull her hand. Miao Honger was pulled out by him obediently, knowing what was about to happen. But she didn't want to resist, she had been hungry for too long and was already too uncomfortable. She thought that it would be better to die, and if she died, maybe her sister and father could survive.
But her younger sister rushed over and hugged her legs tightly, "No, sister can't go. If you want to eat, eat me."
Although his hands were so small and his arms were as thin as chopsticks, he somehow got the strength to hang on to her and refused to let go no matter how his father beat or scolded him.
My father stamped his feet, wiped away his tears, and left. From that day on, he never came home again.
She took her sister to the water tank and drank a bellyful of water. She collapsed on the pile of firewood and watched the light coming through the small tile on the roof.
"I'm so hungry, sis."
"Hold on a bit. Tomorrow morning, I'll go to the pond in the back mountain. Sometimes one or two ducks will fly over there. I can catch one." Miao Hong'er lay weakly on the firewood, making random promises to herself and her sister, "When I catch it, I'll make it into the most delicious duck in the world."
The younger sister sipped her saliva weakly, "I want to eat it so much. When I catch a duck, can I make it into a duck with eight treasures? The greasy duck legs, I take a bite..."
"Okay, let's make eight-treasure duck. I'll grab two, you eat one, and I eat one... Sister?"
The skinny sister lay beside her, squinting her eyes, dreaming of her sister feeding her eight-treasure duck, and never woke up again.
After that, Miao Hong'er used food as a means of spiritual enlightenment, searching for delicious food all over the world, but she never seemed to be able to eat enough.
"If I can really see my deceased relatives on the road to the dead, I also want to see my sister again." Miao Honger told the story calmly, and everyone present fell silent after she finished.
After a while, Fu Yun was the first to stand up. "Let's go, Senior Sister. Let's go to the Way of the Dead."
The Du Wang Road overlapped with the Shinto Road, and the group moved forward along the road of five-colored stones.
Gradually, more and more people started walking around me.
There are peddlers and well-dressed celebrities. There are children with long hair and old men with white hair. There are charming and beautiful prostitutes and elegant and handsome students.
These people had pale faces and illusory bodies, but they moved around in an orderly manner, and the market was bustling, just like in the human world.
At sunset, the magic hour, the buildings on both sides of the road gradually light up with bright lights.
Deep in the darkness of the bright lights, a majestic ancient city can be seen faintly. The city walls are like iron railings, towering into the clouds. They cover a vast area and stretch all the way with no end in sight.
"Hurry up, the city gate is open, let's go in early so we can go home." An old couple holding their bags hurried past Mu Xue and the others hand in hand. If you look closely, the husband's skin has fallen off, revealing his bones. The wife, however, is neat and tidy, a recently deceased soul.
"Brother, walk slower and wait for us brothers." Several soldiers in iron armor followed the footsteps of a man in front of them. In the distance ahead, a man with an arrow piercing his chest turned back and saw them. He had to stop and smiled helplessly.
The undead gathered in a group, including tall and short, fat and thin, male and female, old and young, with one or two tall and strange demons occasionally mixed in. They pushed each other and walked towards the distant city.
Zhong Bo took out two pieces of paper money and hung them on his ears. Suddenly, all life disappeared and he looked eerie, very similar to the aura of those undead souls who came into the city in a daze.
Fu Yun, Miao Hong'er, and Mu Xue looked at each other and followed his example by hanging paper money on their ears.
However, Cen Qianshan did not take the paper money they handed over. Instead, he took out cinnabar and wrote a row of red characters in the air. The strange characters lingered in the air and finally flew back to Cen Qianshan's face.
The red rune starts from the left eye, crawls all the way across the fair face and ends at the neck, looking both mysterious and weird.
Cen Qianshan opened his left eye with the red words on it, and suddenly a ghostly howl came from behind him. A ghost king with a sharp horn on his forehead appeared behind him. Cen Qianshan followed the shadow and mixed into the group of dead souls.
"This is the Six Paths Wheel of Magic, which is very rare even among magic practitioners. Judging from his appearance, he has at least cultivated to the level of evil ghosts, so he can ask the Ghost King for protection and cover up the breath of the living. The young are really to be feared." Zhong Bo exclaimed in praise and followed him.
The dead people who were walking forward in a daze did not notice that there were a few living creatures mixed in among them.
When they reached the city gate, they saw a demon god with a pale complexion and a long pointed beak sitting on the top of the city wall. The demon god had red wings on his back and held a long stick. When Cen Qianshan entered the city gate, he did not react. But when Zhong Bo and others were about to enter the city gate, the demon god suddenly turned around, showing an angry face, stretched out his long stick and knocked on the wall bricks, stopping them.
"Crossing the road of death, the gate of hell, living souls are not allowed to enter."
His voice had a strange rhythm and a strong sense of oppression, which made people almost dare not disobey.
Zhong Bo took out three sticks of incense from his bag without any hurry, lit them and stuck them into the soil under the city wall. The incense was finely twisted and had a rich fragrance. When it was lit, the smoke was like a thread, rising straight into the sky.
The pointed-mouthed demon uttered a sound, moved his nose, took a deep breath, and his expression suddenly looked much better.
Zhong Bo then took out a string of carefully folded gold and silver ingots, drew a circle on the ground, and placed the ignited ingots into the circle, slowly burning them to ashes.
"Although you are a stranger, you still know some etiquette." The demon laughed and sniffed the fireworks greedily with his nose raised.
Zhong Bo burned two strings of gold ingots, and seeing that the expression of the demon god guarding the gate had eased, he gestured to Fu Yun and the others, and they walked towards the city gate together.
The demon was only concerned with absorbing the incense and turned a blind eye to their attempts to sneak into the city.
The gate of this city is very high, with two doors almost reaching the sky, and a bright crack in the middle. When people stand under it and look at it, they feel that the world is so big, and they themselves are so small.
Uncle Zhong, Senior Brother Fu and Senior Sister Miao were swallowed up by the light in the door one by one, and Mu Xue also stepped into the light.
The city gate was dark and messy just now, but the world suddenly changed after I stepped into it.
The sky was filled with yellow sand, the crowded undead disappeared in an instant, and the noisy sounds suddenly died out.
The world is quiet and bright,
Mu Xue found herself in a courtyard with white walls and green bricks. There was a well, a melon shed, a swing frame and a wooden rocking chair for children in the courtyard.
Although it was a place she had never been to, it gave Mu Xue an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
A young woman wearing a woolen shawl stood in the courtyard, smiling and extending her hand to Mu Xue.
"Xue'er, my Xue'er."
"Mother?" Mu Xue called out blankly, and was then pulled into a warm embrace.
My mother's shawl felt soft against my skin and had a soothing smell.
Those scenes deeply hidden in my memory came back to me like a kaleidoscope at this moment.
In the cold and gloomy corner of Fuwang City, the hungry and cold orphan curled up his small body, and he once longed for such an embrace.
During the years when I learned skills from my master, I was beaten with scars by his whip. When I knelt in the snow and shivered, I called for this embrace countless times in my heart.
In the wilderness filled with monsters, when I was alone and collapsed on a snowy mountain after a bloody battle, cold and numb until I was close to death, I dreamed of this embrace many times.
Year after year, the little self gradually stopped dreaming about this fantasy and struggled to gain a foothold in the cruel world. She thought she was strong and indifferent enough and had already abandoned this extravagant hope of childhood.
It was not until this moment, when she was hugged by her mother, that she let out a long sigh, realizing that deep in her heart she had always been looking forward to this moment.
"I'm sorry, Xue'er, for leaving little you alone in this world. My Xue'er, you've worked hard." The mother's gentle voice sounded above her head.
Mu Xue raised her head. Her mother's appearance was exactly as she had imagined.
"Mother, why did you pass the secret method to me?" This has been a puzzle in her heart for a long time.
If she had not told me the secret method of infinite incarnation and wheel rotation, my mother would not have appeared at the gates of hell, but would have enjoyed the convenience of reincarnation for eternity like me. She would continue to explore the great way in life after life, and finally achieve enlightenment and ascend to heaven, and have eternal life.
What on earth made a mother willing to give up such supreme happiness
The mother reached out and touched her hair, smiling gently, "There are thousands of great ways, and everyone has their own choices. Perhaps one day in the future, Xiaoxue will understand that there are other things in this world that can be compared with the supreme way in your heart."
"To my mother, Xiaoxue is another way of mine. My lovely daughter is more important than any treasure in the world."
My mother's warm face gradually became blurred.
Mu Xue opened her eyes and found that she had passed the door and was lying on the steps inside the city wall. It seemed that no one else had come out yet, only Cen Qianshan was sitting beside her and watching over her.
She sat up, reached out and touched her face, and found that it was wet.
"Have I... cried?" she asked blankly.
Cen Qianshan looked back at her and said nothing.
Only the crude tin man, under the control of spiritual power, climbed up the stairs with a grunt.
When it crawled to Mu Xue's feet, it raised its hands and feet, made an exaggerated movement, rolled down the steps, and flattened its body on the ground at the bottom.
Mu Xue burst into laughter.
In the past, sometimes when she saw the little puppet Qianji climbing up the stairs with its short and fat body, she would become malicious and suddenly tap its forehead and push it, causing it to roll down two or three steps.
Qianji would always cooperate at this time, and would let out a cry, spread out his limbs and lie flat on the ground pretending to be dead. This would always make her laugh.
Xiaoshan actually used this game that she used to like the most to amuse her.
"Thank you. I'm much better now." Mu Xue wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes. "I saw my mother in the door."
Cen Qianshan was silent for a long time, and suddenly said: "I didn't see her."
At this moment, he was sitting on the steps, his elbows on his knees, his slender fingers gently shaking, controlling the little tin man, his face as calm as a lake, it was impossible to tell what he was feeling.
Mu Xue felt a little guilty. Of course you can't see me, because I'm here.
"If we, the demon cultivators, die in a heavenly calamity, most of us will only end up with our bodies and souls destroyed." Cen Qianshan gently moved his fingers and controlled the little iron man to walk towards him. "In order to gather the soul of our master, I tried various methods, but none of them worked. But not long ago, her soul suddenly appeared in front of me intact.
He turned to look at Mu Xue: "Do you know why?"
Mu Xue: "Ah, me?"
Fortunately, Cen Qianshan was not really waiting for her answer.
The tin man walked up to Cen Qianshan with a staggering step and was grabbed by him.
His long eyelashes drooped as he stared at the tiny doll, as if he was talking to himself, "No matter what, I will find my master, and I will never let her leave me again this time."